


Children of Krypton #2

by Vigs



Series: One Multiverse Over [5]
Category: DCU, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: (Lex is a cissexist asshole), Alien Gender/Sexuality, Clark isn't buff, F/M, Gen, Minor Transgender Character, Original DC reboot, The Clark/Lois is still just flirting, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-07-29 03:12:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16255496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vigs/pseuds/Vigs
Summary: Clark's world is rocked when he realizes that Krypton's destruction left three survivors: himself, Brainiac, and another Kryptonian. But Brainiac can't be trusted, and the other Kryptonian is stuck in a stasis pod. To save them, he may have to turn to Lex Luthor for help, and reveal things about himself he would really prefer that Lex not know.





	1. Lois

**Author's Note:**

> I recommend reading [Children of Krypton #1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15771690) before reading this story. You don't need to read Capes and Cowls; that's a Batman story in the same setting, and so far, the two haven't crossed paths.
> 
> There's a brief reference to transmisogyny in this chapter. There will be more serious cissexism later in the story, all of it coming from Lex Luthor. I'll put content notes at the beginning of individual chapters so that it isn't a surprise.

Practically every news organization in the world had tried to get someone on the ground in the empty lot half an hour’s drive outside Metropolis where Brainiac’s ship would be landing. Lois made a note to herself to look up how long Lex had owned this empty chunk of land. What had he planned on doing with it before Brainiac made contact? Or did he buy it just for this?

Anyway, the press area was crowded enough that it made the nearby military encampment look positively roomy. Jimmy was lucky he was with her; she was willing to elbow people out of the way to get the two of them to a good vantage point. Well, except for the people who were broadcasting live, since she didn’t really want to be on TV elbowing newscasters. She stepped on their feet instead.

At least Clark hadn’t insisted on coming along. She couldn’t have gotten him  _ and _ Jimmy through the crowd, and since Jimmy was the one with the camera, she’d have left the farm boy out in the cold.

She and Jimmy managed to score a prime spot on top of a rock. It wasn’t big enough that a newscaster and a cameraman could have fit, but it was ideal for a photographer and had just enough room that Lois could see over everyone’s heads too. Score.

Now all they had to do was wait… for three hours. That was the scheduled landing time, anyway. Playing King of the Hill on their rock could’ve been fun, but no one around them actually seemed willing to try and physically remove an attractive woman (hey, Lois could recognize objective facts about herself) and a guy who still seemed to be trapped in the throes of puberty (Jimmy was 24, but a  _ very unfortunate _ 24) from their spot, not with all the cameras around to catch it. All they got were some trying-to-be-intimidating glares, but Lois was immune to those at this point, and Jimmy was more scared of her than he was of some  _ other _ journalist.

Now that they’d settled in for the wait, she sort of wished Clark was there. Between his crush on her and his tendency to occasionally show a surprising amount of backbone, he was much more fun to tease than Jimmy.

Speaking of people who were fun to tease, Lois spotted a familiar red-and-blue shape in the sky and smiled.

“Hi, Superman,” she said at a normal conversational volume. Jimmy looked at her, then looked up and waved.

Other (lesser) reporters noticed him by then, and started shouting questions at the sky. It was kind of hilarious.

“Have any thoughts on Brainiac you’d like to share?” she asked, still conversational. He was  _ right there _ , there was no need to shout.

The blue-and-red speck disappeared for a moment. Lois felt a woosh of air as something was pressed into her hand, and then he was back in the sky.

She unfolded the piece of paper that she was suddenly holding.

_ Are you seriously asking me for an exclusive in front of 100 other journalists? This is why people think our relationship isn’t purely professional, Ms. Lane. _

Something had been erased under “our relationship isn’t purely professional.” Lois held it up to the light to get a better look, and smirked. Apparently he’d written “This is why people think we’re sleeping together” and then changed his mind.

“Well, you can’t turn Lex’s event into a press conference for yourself; that would be rude,” Lois pointed out. “And you can’t take me somewhere else to give a statement there. Poor Jimmy would get eaten alive without me.”

“I really would,” Jimmy confirmed. “I think that group over there is from the  _ Gotham Gazette _ . They fight almost as dirty as Lois.”

“Oh hey, you’re right,” Lois said, recognizing Vicki Vale and waving. “Yeah, Vicki would chase you off this rock and you’d end up thanking her for it. So anyway, Supes, you can either come down and give me an interview or leave me hanging, and I know you’d  _ never _ do that.”

Superman disappeared from the sky again. Another paper appeared in Lois’ hand.

_ I don’t think Mr. Luthor is being careful enough. That’s all I have to say on the matter. _

“Fine,” Lois sighed. He’d told her as much already, but she’d hoped she might get a little more out of him.

Vicki elbowed her way through the crowd, dragging her own photographer—a young woman Lois didn’t recognize—along behind her.

“Lois,” Vicki said. “Don’t suppose there’s room for one more on the high ground?”

“Sorry, Vicki, this rock is  _ Daily Planet _ territory. Who’s your photographer?”

“Joy, say hi to Lois,” Vicki said. Joy waved timidly. “Joy’s a little shy, but she’s very good at her job. In fact, she got some  _ great _ shots of you and Superman passing notes just now. Not really  _ Gazette _ material, but I’m sure the  _ Metropolis Inquisitor _ would buy them off her—”

“All right, all right,” Lois groused good-naturedly. The  _ Inquisitor _ was one of the loudest voices trying to make her sadly professional relationship with Superman into a scandal. “We’ll let the photographers take the rock while you and I catch up on the ground, how does that sound?”

She was pretty sure Vicki wouldn’t actually follow through on the threat—Lois had enough dirt on her to start her own gossip rag, if the two of them stooped to those kinds of tactics—but she couldn’t have just given her spot to a photographer from a rival newspaper for  _ friendship’s _ sake.

Lois hopped down from the rock, and Jimmy chivalrously attempted to give Joy a hand up, which of course made the whole thing more difficult and awkward than if he’d just let Joy clamber up on her own. Lois and Vicki shared an amused glance.

“So how’ve you been?” Lois asked. “Still cozying up to Wayne as much as possible?”

“At least I’m getting laid,” Vicki retorted. “How’s your crush on the big blue boy scout going?”

“I still get  _ laid _ , Vicki,” she said. “Have you seen me? I’m gorgeous.”

“So not well, then.”

“No comment.” Lois changed the subject. “How was your trip through the wastelands of New Jersey?”

If there was one thing Gothamites and Metropolitans could agree on, it was that the state separating their cities was terrible. The two of them cheerfully ragged on Jersey for a while before moving on to discussing mutual acquaintances, trading compliments disguised as insults disguised as compliments about articles they’d written recently, and complaining about inferior forms of journalism (so basically, anything other than print).

“I hope this Brainiac thing is punctual,” Lois groused eventually. “I have things I could be doing instead of waiting around.”

“Please, you don’t know waiting around until you’ve been stuck waiting to see if Wayne is even going to show up to an interview. Or a press conference. Or a date.”

“And yet you keep going back,” Lois observed.

“He’s rich, he’s handsome, he’s good in bed,” Vicki said with a shrug. “So sue me. You know how hard it is to find guys who aren’t shitheads.”

Lois grimaced. She did know, and she knew it had to be particularly difficult in Vicki’s case. She still remembered how things had been in college, when people were more aware of Vicki’s status and she had to deal with chasers and transphobes.

“Well, let me know if you ever need me to break his nose,” she said.

“Oh, please, you know I’d do it myself if it needed doing,” Vicki said.

“Right, but then we wait until it’s healed, and BAM! I get him again,” Lois explained. “He’ll never see it coming.”

“I’d say it was sweet of you to offer if I didn’t know you just liked having excuses to punch people,” Vicki teased.

Suddenly Jimmy was frantically taking pictures of the sky, the way people had when Superman first showed up, before the sight of him flying around was something only tourists gawked at. Joy quickly joined him. Lois looked up.

Superman wasn’t alone in the sky.

At first the ship was just a speck. Jimmy had sharp eyes, she had to give him that; Lois would have assumed it was just a bird or a plane or something. But it quickly became clear that the descending shape wasn’t like anything that had been in Earth’s sky before. It was oddly piecemeal, with bits sticking out apparently at random and different sections appearing to be made of different materials.

Well, maybe alien aesthetics were different. Superman’s clothing choices did seem to lend credence to that theory.

“I guess that’s Brainiac,” she said, unable to keep a bit of awe out of her voice. The ship just kept getting bigger, casting a shadow across the amassed journalists like a thundercloud.

“Or Brainiac’s ship,” Vicki said. “Luthor wasn’t really clear about that, was he?”

“No he was not.” So either that enormous  _ thing _ was Brainiac, or Brainiac was… what, its sole inhabitant? Somehow that seemed even creepier, more inhuman, the idea of one being living in a vessel that vast.

Maybe Brainiac was just the spokesman, er, spokesbeing for a whole crew of people. But the closer the ship got, the less likely Lois thought it was that whatever intelligence piloted it was anything like human.

She looked around in the sky, hoping to see the gaudy primary colors that meant safety, but Superman was nowhere to be seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure no one else is as amused by "It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's Brainiac!" as I am, but personally I think I'm hilarious. Oh, and to explain the reference to New Jersey: I don't think the usual DC tactic of keeping all the real cities and then adding a bunch more makes sense (it would cause all kinds of weird demographic changes, and has some strange implications about the world's population), so I'm merging fictional cities with real ones instead. Gotham is New York with more gargoyles, and Metropolis is a shinier Philadelphia.


	2. Clark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CN: brief, minor cissexism from Lex.

Clark didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Something about the huge ship descending from the sky made him feel queasy, but that could just be his human upbringing making it hard to appreciate alien designs. And the thing  _ looked _ alien. Humans would never have designed anything like that.

He wouldn’t have thought, judging from the sleek design of the ship that had brought him to Earth, that Kryptonians would have either. But everywhere on that gargantuan ship was a design he’d seen before: three circles making a triangle, point-down. Lights blinked off and on seemingly at random all over the ship, always in that same design, and giving off the same pale blue light that the design on his ship had.

Although he was agonizingly aware of what could happen if he left for even a moment, he had to know. He flew to Kansas as fast as he could, going directly to the old barn that held his ship and interfacing with it.

“Query: define symbol: three circles forming the vertices of an equilateral triangle, point-downward.”

“Although such a simple symbol is likely to have a number of meanings in other cultures, on Krypton this was the symbol of Primary-artificial-mind.”

“Update English dictionary: Primary-artificial-mind defined as Brainiac.”

He flew back to the field outside Metropolis. Nothing had changed, to his relief; the ship was still slowly approaching the ground.  _ Slowly _ approaching, not falling, even though it had no visible means of propulsion.

A ship that size could hold dozens of people—maybe hundreds, if they were in some kind of suspended animation. Whether they were Kryptonian or not, the level of technology implied by the ship’s slow descent meant they could be a huge threat to the Earth, and if they were Kryptonian, they’d have superpowers on top of that.

Far below, he heard a voice—clearly artificial, but with some degree of inflection—speak into an earpiece in Luthor’s ear.

“Luthor. Who is the flying entity?”

“Oh, that’s  _ Superman _ ,” Lex sneered. “Don’t worry about him.”

“The files that you provided me with did not mention him.”

“You asked for history. He’s only been around for five years.”

Clark almost smiled. Lex may hate him, but he clearly didn’t trust Brainiac, and had kept it from learning about Superman’s abilities and weaknesses in case he needed a secret weapon. Not that Clark  _ appreciated _ being used as a weapon, especially by Luthor, but the idea that his greatest detractor would depend on him that way was ironic.

“He is not human,” the mechanical voice observed.

“No, he claims to be the last survivor of a dead race,” Lex said.

“He will come aboard with you,” the voice stated.

“That wasn’t our agreement,” Luthor hissed. “I was supposed to board alone.”

“You will still be the sole human allowed direct access, as agreed.”

“Let me come aboard first,” Luthor bargained. “He can board tomorrow.”

“I must speak with him directly. If you will not board together, you may board at a later time.”

“No! Fine, we’ll board together,” Lex said, clearly upset. Probably about the optics, Clark assumed. He’d wanted to stride onto an alien vessel, fearless and alone, not with Superman at his side stealing his spotlight.

Clark grinned to himself, then schooled his face into impassivity and landed just inside Lex’s circle of bodyguards.

“I suppose you were listening in,” Lex accused.

“I told you I’d be on hand in case I was needed,” Clark said innocently. “It sounds like I’m needed.”

“Superman, I swear, if you and Brainiac have been colluding behind my back—”

“Of course not, Mr. Luthor,” he said, meaningfully looking at Luthor’s earpiece. “I would never secretly communicate with an alien intelligence behind everyone’s backs. That would be a terrible thing to do. Almost a betrayal of Earth, wouldn’t you say?”

Lex ground his teeth. Clark knew that several members of the US government, not to mention the UN, had told him similar things, but neither of those groups had been able to make up their minds whether they wanted to try to stop Luthor from allowing Brainiac to land in time to make a difference. The national guard’s presence seemed like a token gesture next to that huge patchwork ship.

“Fine,” Lex spat after a moment. “I suppose I could use a bodyguard, just in case.”

“I’m happy to fill that role, if Ms. Graves doesn’t mind,” Clark said, nodding to Mercy. She remained impassive.

“Now shut up and stop blocking my view,” Lex ordered. “It’s landing.”

Clark moved to the side and turned to look. The ship was indeed landing. It was somewhere between the size of a skyscraper and the size of a city block, and it touched down so gently that it seemed like a bad special effect, not disturbing anything around it.

He wondered whether the mind-bogglingly soft landing had been because it didn’t want to spook the humans, or if it knew they were technologically advanced enough to recognize how impressive that was and was  _ trying _ to be scary. However the humans were reacting, the Kryptonian was definitely intimidated.

And why did it want him on board, anyway? He needed to focus on Lex less and Brainiac more, but at least he had some idea what Lex’s motives were. Brainiac was a complete unknown.

A door opened on the ship. Clark had sort of expected a ramp, but the door was right at ground level and there was no ramp necessary. It was a little taller and narrower than most doors humans made, but it would certainly accommodate him or Lex.

“I can go first, in case there’s trouble,” Clark offered.

“No,” Lex snapped, and shot him a withering glare. “I may have to share this moment with you, but I’ll be damned if I let you take it from me.”

He’d assumed Lex would accept the offer. The door was facing the journalists; if Luthor went first, pictures of them boarding the ship would mostly be of Superman’s cape. Lex might be prioritizing something other than optics.

It would probably be projecting for Clark to imagine that Lex actually cared about the experience of boarding an alien spaceship for its own sake rather than as part of some nefarious scheme, but he felt a pang of empathy for the man nonetheless.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

They approached the ship side by side, both ignoring the shouts from the journalists. That pattern—three circles making a triangle—was above the door, too.

Luthor walked up to the ship like he owned it. If the ship was Kryptonian, Clark was afraid the man might have an aneurism when he found out.

Clark stopped a full two yards away from the door, to let Lex make the initial entrance on his own. He may not like the guy, but this should be humanity’s moment. When all was said and done, Clark was a guest on this planet, and Ma had raised him to be a courteous one.

Luthor shot him an unreadable look before vanishing into the shadowy interior of the ship. Clark gave him a second, and then followed. The door closed behind them, leaving them in a hallway made of something that might be plastic or ceramic or even metal, lit by glowing blue circles arranged in triangles, placed at regular intervals.

“Welcome, Alexander Luthor,” said the artificial voice Clark had heard from Lex’s earpiece. “And welcome, Superman. Luthor, as agreed, you are humanity’s representative. Superman, what is the name of your species?”

“I’m the only one left,” Clark said. “But our planet was called Krypton.”

“Unanticipated,” the voice said, now speaking Kryptonian. Lex glared at Clark. “All data indicated that no other Kryptonians survived. You wear the crest of the House of El. Was Jor-El responsible for your survival?”

“Jor-El was my parent. My name is Kal-El,” Clark said in Kryptonian, before switching to English. “We should speak in English, for Mr. Luthor’s sake. What do you mean, no  _ other _ Kryptonians?”

“In a sense, I am Kryptonian,” the voice said in English. “I was created on Krypton. But I carry within me, in a state of suspended animation, a being I thought was the last of the Kryptonian species. They were on a satellite when Krypton was destroyed, along with a copy of my software. I was only able to save them by putting them into suspended animation.”

“If there’s only one, why do you say ‘them’?” Lex asked.

“Kryptonians have only one sex, and no analogue to the human concept of gender,” the voice said. “Your language’s gendered pronouns are insufficient in this case.”

“Oh really,” Lex, said, eyeing Superman speculatively. “How fascinating.”

Clark crossed his arms over his chest, uncomfortably aware of the fact that without the constricting material of his uniform, he would appear to have breasts. He tried to look as impassive and SuperMAN-ish as possible.

“Maybe they didn’t before,” he said. “I have a gender. I’m male.”

“But if your species only has one sex—” Lex began, before cutting himself off. “No, now isn’t the time. Brainiac, the information we’ve received from you has already proven valuable—”

“You said you hadn’t gotten any information yet,” Clark interrupted hotly. “You lied to the UN!”

“—and I’m ready to fulfill my end of the bargain,” he continued, unperturbed.

“Of course,” Brainiac said. “If you will proceed down the hallway, you will find an information transfer station calibrated to your species.”

They resumed their walk, Clark glaring at Lex, Lex speculatively eyeing parts of Clark’s anatomy that Clark would really prefer he didn’t eye. After a few yards, the hallway turned and widened into more of a room. There were two chairs with hemispherical domes attached to them, like mind-wiping devices from some sci-fi B movie.

“The seat to your left is calibrated for humans, Mr. Luthor,” Brainiac said. “Kal-El, the seat on the right should accommodate you.”

“Accommodate me for what?” Clark asked.

“The only data about Kryptonians that I do not already possess is within your head,” Brainiac said. “I wish to download a copy of your mind. The process is both painless and harmless, and your memories will be stored within me for as long as I exist.”

“Immortality, in a way,” Lex murmured, approaching the chair on the left without hesitation. “Until I can find a better solution.”

He sat down, and the hemisphere lowered over his head. The familiar three-circle light appeared on the front of the hemisphere, and Lex slumped, unconscious. Only Clark’s ability to hear the man’s heartbeat told him that he hadn’t been killed.

“I’m not comfortable with this,” Clark said.

“Of course, in return for your cooperation, I will give you access to all data about Krypton and Kryptonians,” Brainiac said. “I can tell you of your family, your planet, and your history. And—since this planet has proven to be habitable by Kryptonians—I can reunite you with the only other surviving member of your species.”

Clark swallowed hard.


	3. Clark

Clark didn’t know what to do. Could he really let Brainiac mess around in his head? He still didn’t trust it, not really. His ship had said that Brainiac was entrusted with the safety of the Kryptonian race, and that it had dismissed Jor-El’s data about the planet’s imminent destruction. Something didn’t add up.

And would it really keep the other Kryptonian from him if he refused to let it copy his mind?

“Let me see them first,” Clark asked Brainiac. “Please. I’ve never even seen another Kryptonian, not since I was a baby. I have no memories of Jor-El.”

“Acceptable,” the cool mechanical voice responded. It had switched back to speaking in Kryptonian, even though Clark had spoken English. “Please wait.”

After a moment, a panel in what had seemed to be a solid wall slid open. A table walked through on segmented metal tentacles, with what looked like a coffin on top of it. Clark’s feeling that he was in a sci-fi B movie intensified.

The coffin-like object was transparent on top. Inside—well, Clark couldn’t be sure, he reminded himself. This could just be a hologram. Even if there was a being inside, they weren’t necessarily Kryptonian.

But he was pretty sure they were. Their face was lax and expressionless, their features subtly inhuman in placement and proportion. He’d only ever seen a face like that in the mirror. They were clothed in something skintight and white, with small wires and tubes connecting it to the inside of the suspension chamber, or whatever it was, in which they rested.

They were clearly more muscular than he was; not buff or anything, just normally muscled where he was scrawny. Well, that made sense, he supposed; they would have grown up without superpowers. They’d been able to exercise.

Their small breasts and subtly flared hips made them as androgynous-looking as he was, when he wasn’t binding. Their blonde hair was in a short, utilitarian cut, adding to the effect. He wondered what it would have been like to grow up somewhere that was normal.

“What’s their name?” he asked.

“You will receive that information along with the rest of the data on Krypton when you have allowed me to scan your brain,” Brainiac said.

“What?” Clark asked. His feeling of unease intensified. “You gave Luthor information before you downloaded his mind.” He glanced over at Lex, who was still unmoving and unconscious in the scanning chair.

“He gave me information about Earth in exchange. His mind-scan is a low-priority acquisition. Yours is much more valuable.” Brainiac’s voice was implacable. “Please understand, Kal-El. Protecting Kryptonians and amassing Kryptonian data is the purpose for which I was built. I must have your memories. My data is incomplete.”

“If your primary purpose was to protect Kryptonians, how did you only manage to save one?” Clark demanded. “This ship could hold so many more—”

“This ship was originally a satellite with minimal maneuvering capabilities,” Brainiac said. “It was not designed to land. The Kryptonian who lies before you was the only one aboard. By the time the danger became clear, it was too late to evacuate any more.”

“Then how did Jor-El realize the danger in time to evacuate me?”

“Jor-El’s interpretation of the available data was faulty,” Brainiac said. “He mistook an extremely small probability for a certainty.”

“But if there was any possibility, shouldn’t you have prepared?” Clark asked. “Why weren’t there ships? Why weren’t there  _ colonies _ ? Why would a race with spaceflight capabilities stay entirely on one planet? Why—”

“All the information you request will be given to you once you in exchange for your brain scan,” Brainiac said calmly. “Please proceed to the seat on your right so that I may begin.”

“No.” Clark crossed his arms. “I’m going to need more answers before I let you mess around inside my head.”

“You suspect deception?” Brainiac asked.

“Well… yeah.” Clark scratched the back of his head uncomfortably. “I mean, I hate to be rude, but I don’t actually know you, and this is a lot to ask.”

“Your caution is understandable,” Brainiac said. “I am beginning to process the data from Luthor’s memories. You are a very important figure on your adopted planet. It is reasonable that you would not choose to risk yourself with no guarantees.”

“It’s not that I won’t take risks,” Clark objected. “I just don’t feel comfortable with this whole mind-downloading thing. There wasn’t any mention of that kind of technology in my ship’s database.”

“It is a technology I have developed in the years since Krypton’s destruction,” Brainiac explained. “Tell me, do you still have access to that vessel? If it contains information about how you came to be on this planet, I would be willing to trade information about Krypton for remote access to its databanks.”

Clark was tempted, but if Brainiac couldn’t be trusted, letting it access his ship’s databanks would mean he had no trustworthy information about Krypton. Sure, he could instruct the ship to upload data only and not accept any transfer of data from Brainiac, but he couldn’t be sure that Brainiac wouldn’t be able to override his orders.

“I’d be willing to give you access in exchange for the Kryptonian,” Clark said, gesturing at the person entombed in front of him. “If you wake them up—”

“They are my most valuable bargaining chip,” Brainiac said. “You save people, correct? As Superman? It seems to be important to you. Save them from an eternity in suspended animation by allowing me to scan your brain.”

Something about that cool analysis of his priorities—presumably from information gleaned from Lex’s mind—chilled Clark.

“If keeping them in suspended animation forever would count as keeping them ‘safe’ for you, how do I know you won’t do that to me once you’ve got my memories?” he asked. He’d read enough science fiction to know how making a robot designed to keep you safe might go wrong, thank you very much.

“Do you mistrust me because of what I say, or because of my association with Luthor?” Brainiac asked. “I have learned from him that there is a great deal of animosity between you.”

“Stop telling me things you read out of his mind!” Clark protested. “That’s completely unethical.”

“My apologies. I was certain it was not information he would object to me sharing, but I will not share anything else if you object to it.”

“You know what, this is just…” Clark took a deep breath. “Wake the Kryptonian up so I can talk to them. If they confirm your story, I’ll let you scan my mind. You have my word.”

“Again, I must refuse,” Brainiac said. “I am the only entity within this solar system capable of reversing the suspended animation. I will not give up my most significant advantage in this negotiation.”

“Then I’ll at least wait until Luthor is finished being scanned,” Clark said. “Just so I know it’s safe.”

“The full process will take some time, but I can wake Luthor momentarily so that he may speak to you,” Brainiac said.

“Having it interrupted won’t hurt him or anything?”

“It will slow the process, but he will suffer no harm,” Brainiac assured him.

“All right, do it,” Clark said.

There was a momentary pause, and then Lex groaned.

“Is it finished?” he asked groggily.

At superspeed, Clark grabbed Lex under one arm and the container that held the sleeping Kryptonian under the other.

“I’m doing some of my own investigations,” Clark said. “I’ll come back if everything checks out.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Lex demanded. “Put me down this instant!”

“Sorry, Mr. Luthor, but I just don’t trust this thing,” Clark said as he turned to leave.

There was no longer a door.


	4. Clark

“Bring the door back, Brainiac,” Clark demanded.

“If you attempt to revive the Kryptonian with Earth technology, they will die,” Brainiac said. “Even if I found that outcome acceptable, I doubt it would increase your trust in me.”

“I’m not willing to just take your word for that,” Clark said.

“If you don’t put me the hell down right now, I swear, Superman—”

“Sorry about this, Mr. Luthor,” Clark said, and carefully rendered the man unconscious. “Brainiac, open the door.”

Brainiac didn’t respond verbally. The table-robot-thing that the suspended animation pod had been on broke in two, with each half growing two more segmented tentacle-limbs. They lashed out, trying to take the suspension pod and Luthor from him.

“This isn’t making me trust you more!” Clark said as he dodged.

“You ceased to act in good faith,” Brainiac said, still sounding entirely calm. “I require the Kryptonian, and Luthor promised me the remainder of his brain scan.”

“I told you I’ll come back—” Clark dodged. “If you don’t open the door, I’ll make one!”

In response to this threat, a different wall panel opened up. At least a dozen more tentacled drones streamed through, all rushing towards Clark, whose hands were extremely full with the unconscious businessman and the container of sleeping Kryptonian.

His eyes weren’t, though. He managed to take out three of the things with heat vision before the rest of them seemed to stretch and shimmer, becoming as reflective as mirrors.

“What, you’re the Borg now?” Clark demanded, frustrated. He lashed out with a foot and crushed the nearest drone against the floor.

“You cannot escape without risking the lives you are so concerned for,” Brainiac said calmly. “Return Luthor and the Kryptonian to me, and we will resume our negotiation.”

“Not a chance.” Clark kicked a drone, sending it careening into another one, but another half-dozen entered the room.

“If I were the monster you fear that I am, I would threaten the humans outside,” Brainiac said. “I believe that your lover Lois Lane is among them.”

“For the love of—not everything Luthor thinks is true!” Clark said. A drone leapt onto his back and he crushed it against the hull, careful not to damage either of the people he carried. “And you probably know that if you did that, I’d definitely never agree to work with you.”

“Consent is optimal for the mind-scan process, but it is not required,” Brainiac informed him.

“Very reassuring, thanks.” More drones were pouring into the room, and Clark decided this fight needed to end sooner rather than later. He kicked his way through the wall with some difficulty—whatever material Brainiac was made of, it was certainly tough—and managed to make a hole big enough to accommodate the suspension pod.

More doors began closing along the corridor that led back outside. Clark could see a shrinking square of daylight at the end of it.

“More bad science fiction tropes,” he muttered as he flew down the hallway, just barely getting the three of them out before the doors finished closing. He could hear shutters clicking and newscasters talking excitedly from the media area, and winced. Today could end up looking really bad for him.

He stopped at the LexCorp group and handed Mercy her unconscious boss.

“He’s okay, just unconscious,” Clark assured her. “And uh—probably  _ really _ angry.”

“What else is new,” Mercy muttered, and Clark almost grinned. She was never that sarcastic when her boss was awake to hear her.

About a hundred different people were yelling “Superman!” from the media area. Clark looked at the gargantuan figure of Brainiac’s ship, but it hadn’t made any hostile moves, so they were probably just asking for a statement.

Okay, this was going to be his only chance to try to—he grimaced with distaste—control the narrative before Lex woke up and got his PR people on it. He flew over to the press area and held up the suspension pod so that they would be able to see the unconscious figure within it.

“Brainiac was holding another member of my species hostage,” he said, projecting his voice so all the microphones would pick it up. “I don’t trust its intentions. I know Mr. Luthor is pretty unhappy with me, but I wasn’t going to leave him helpless with an entity that has proven itself willing to take hostages. I urge the US and the UN to demand that Brainiac leave our planet and our airspace immediately, and I’d like to offer my assistance in enforcing that demand if it doesn’t agree. Now I’m going to try and get some help for my friend here. Please excuse me.”

He flew away, ignoring the demands for clarifications and follow-up questions. One voice, however, stood out among the others.

“Damn, Superman,” Lois said, quietly enough that the woman standing next to her probably couldn’t even hear her. “What did you do this time?”

He couldn’t say he was completely sure yet himself. He kept focusing on the sounds from the field, to make sure he’d hear the reactions if Brainiac’s ship did anything other than just sit there passively. Really, he ought to stay there and get someone else to take the unconscious Kryptonian to STAR Labs, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to let them out of his sight.

Another Kryptonian. What would they be like? Catatonic with grief for a planet that, unlike him, they could actually remember? Ashamed to associate with him, with his un-Kryptonian worldview? Or would they, just maybe, be glad to meet him and able to understand all the parts of him that made him a misfit on Earth?

More importantly, would they want to help him save people, want to be left alone, or want to use the superpowers that Earth’s sun would give them to hurt people?

Dr. Hamilton was waiting for him at the door with a gurney.

“I was watching the news,” he said. “How did Brainiac get ahold of another Kryptonian?”

“It’s Kryptonian, too,” Clark told him as he gently placed the pod on the gurney. “It was supposed to protect the Kryptonian people and catalogue their knowledge, but somehow it didn’t manage to stop Krypton’s destruction or save more than one Kryptonian. I don’t… maybe it was telling the truth, but I can only confirm it by talking to this one, and it wouldn’t wake them up.”

“Well, I’ll do my best, but I don’t know whether I’ll be able to wake her—”

“I don’t know if they’d want to be a ‘her,’” Clark interrupted. “Gender is, uh, complicated for Kryptonians. I don’t even know their name.”

Dr. Hamilton blinked, but didn’t ask any awkward questions. Clark was desperately glad.

“I’ll do my best to wake  _ them _ up, then,” he said. “But I don’t know if I’ll be able to. We don’t have anything like this kind of technology.”

“I know,” Clark said. “I just… I couldn't just leave them there. Brainiac threatened to leave them like this forever if I didn’t cooperate with it.”

“What did it want you to do?” Dr. Hamilton asked.

“It wanted to scan my brain,” Clark said. “To copy all my memories to its database, so that its information about Kryptonians would be complete. It was doing the same to Luthor, and he was completely helpless while it did.”

“I can see why you’d want to avoid that, if you don’t trust it,” Dr. Hamilton said.

“Yeah.” Clark looked down at the Kryptonian, frozen in their pod like Snow White in her coffin. He didn’t even know enough about his own species to judge their age. “I just hope I did the right thing.”

“I’m much more willing to trust your instincts than Luthor’s,” Dr. Hamilton said comfortingly. “Especially when it comes to a Kryptonian, uh, intelligence.”

“Right,” Clark said. He’d never told Dr. Hamilton that he grew up on Earth and knew next to nothing about Krypton. He’d never told  _ anyone _ ; the only people who knew hadn’t had to be told. “Thanks.”


	5. Clark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CN: This is the chapter with the most serious cissexism. If you don't want to read that, skip to this chapter's end notes; I'll provide a full summary of the chapter there.

Ma picked up on the first ring, like she’d been waiting next to the phone.

“Oh, Clark, I saw the news,” she said. “Are you okay? Was that really a Kryptonian in that coffin thing?”

“I’m okay,” he said automatically, and then thought again. “I think I’m okay. I don’t know. They really are another Kryptonian, Ma. Unless Brainiac was lying about that, I guess. I don’t trust that thing, but maybe I just don’t want to trust it because it’s in cahoots with Lex. I might have made a huge mistake. I mean, it could have killed everyone in that field when I took the stasis pod and Mr. Luthor and got out!”

“Well, it didn’t,” Ma said. “Not that that means it’s trustworthy. I guess it wants something from you?”

“It wants to scan my brain,” he said. “Copy all my memories to its database. It said that it wouldn’t wake the other Kryptonian back up if I wouldn’t agree, and that we don’t have the technology to wake them up on Earth. It wouldn’t even tell me their name. And they’re the only one who could tell me whether it’s trustworthy, and I might have killed them just by taking them off that ship—”

“Breathe, Clark,” Ma ordered. “You’re starting to talk at superspeed. You don’t owe anybody scans of your brain, you understand? Not for anything. Nobody and nothing is entitled to that.”

“I agree with you, Ma, but I don’t know, maybe they didn’t have the same ideas about bodily autonomy on Krypton. And there’s another thing I’m worried about—what if we do manage to wake the other Kryptonian up, and they decide they want to use their superpowers to take over the world or something?”

“It took you years to get your powers,” Ma said comfortingly. “Maybe it won’t for them, but if you wake them up out of the sun and then keep them out of it until you’re sure you can trust them, they shouldn’t get powers at all, right?”

“That’s the theory,” Clark said. He took a deep breath. Ma’s comforting practicality always grounded him, even when—as in this case—he was making this phone call from a few thousand feet above ground level.

“You’re worried about something else,” she said.

“It’s stupid,” he said, then rephrased before she could scold him for ableist language and not respecting his own feelings. Ma hadn’t gone to college but she did a _lot_ of reading. “I mean, it’s a small thing to worry about when there are so many life-or-death things going on. I’m just… well, I’m not exactly a model Kryptonian. I guess I’m afraid that if we do manage to wake them up, they won’t like me.”

“I bet they weren’t exactly a model Kryptonian either,” Ma said. “I bet nobody was. You could look all day and not find me a model human. It’ll be okay, son.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. We’ll figure it out.”

“That’s my boy,” Ma said. “You come back and visit as soon as things quiet down a little. Maybe your ship will have some information about this whole sleeping beauty thing.”

“Suspended animation,” he corrected, laughing a little. “Yeah, I will, Ma. Love you.”

“Love you too,” she said.

He returned his cell phone to his apartment at superspeed, then took another minute above the clouds to get his head on straight. This next conversation was going to be a lot more difficult, but he couldn’t avoid it forever.

He flew to the top floor of LexCorp headquarters. Lex was on the phone when he got there, but hung up almost immediately, glaring at Superman through the glass. Clark squared his shoulders and walked inside.

“You had _no right_ ,” Lex said without preamble.

“I couldn’t just leave you there,” Clark said. “Brainiac had demonstrated a willingness to take hostages.”

“That was supposed to be _my_ day, do you understand me? My triumph! And then you had to… argh!” His hands were clenched into fists and he was breathing heavily. Clark was a little worried that he’d take a swing at him and break his hand. “Why did that damn ship have to be from _your_ planet?”

“Well, I’m here because Earth is one of the closest life-bearing planets to Krypton,” Clark said—he didn’t know that for sure, but it seemed reasonable. “And that’s probably the same reason that Brainiac—”

“I know!” Luthor snarled. “It was a rhetorical question, you muscle-headed ignoramus. You think I couldn’t figure that out?”

“Mr. Luthor, Brainiac’s primary function was the protection of my people, and yet only two of us are still alive—and one only barely,” Clark said. “For that to have happened, I’m worried that it must have malfunctioned or worse. That could mean it’s a danger to the entire planet.”

“And yet it’s peacefully sitting in a field right now, being photographed by your girlfriend.”

“Ms. Lane is neither my girlfriend nor a photographer. Luthor, I _know_ you’ve been communicating with it. Any information that you can share—”

“As if you’d trust information that came from me,” Lex sneered. “We both know you hate me, and we both know why.”

“Any negative feelings I may have towards you—”

“You hate me because I’m a _man_ ,” Lex continued ignoring Clark’s words. “A real man, not one of the screaming ninnies you save every day. You may be stronger and faster than I am, but you’ll never be a man, not really. That just eats you up inside, doesn’t it?”

Clark saw red. He had to close his eyes to keep from blasting Lex, or at least his desk.

“I’m right on the money, aren’t I,” Lex said, satisfied.

“I suppose it depends on your definition of ‘man’,” Clark said, forcing himself to be calm and open his eyes. “Since I’m not a human.”

“I’m well aware,” Lex said. “Is that why, as you keep insisting, you aren’t sleeping with Ms. Lane? Do you even have a cock?”

“There’s only one reason I can think of that you’d be asking about my genitals, Mr. Luthor, and I’m flattered, but not interested.” That one was easier to deal with. He did have a penis. Well, a penis-equivalent. He also had what was essentially a vagina, but there was no reason for Lex to know that.

Lex snarled, but visibly forced himself to calm.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked. “The next best thing to being a real man is getting fucked by one.”

Clark decided to ignore that.

“If you don’t have any information to share about Brainiac, and you won’t listen to my warnings, then I’ll see myself out,” he said.

“I could have you charged with assault,” Lex said. “For knocking me out and dragging me off that ship.”

“Precedent says I can get people out of dangerous situations without waiting for their permission. The case could easily go against you. I don’t think you want to risk that,” Clark said. “Goodbye, Mr. Luthor.”

He left, but not fast enough to avoid hearing Lex’s parting shot.

“Goodbye, Super- _thing_.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (blank space inserted as a buffer, for anyone who's skipping to the summary here)
> 
> Chapter summary: Clark calls Ma Kent, who reassures him that he doesn't owe Brainiac a brain scan and that rescuing the Kryptonian in stasis was the right thing to do. She tells him that even if the Kryptonian in stasis ends up being dangerous, he'll be able to keep them under control, because they probably won't get superpowers all at once. She also tells him that they'll probably like him even though he's not a "model Kryptonian." He then goes to discuss the Brainiac situation with Luthor. Lex is entirely uncooperative, and taunts him with the information about Kryptonian reproductive biology that he gained from Brainiac, suggesting that this invalidates Superman's gender identity, which Clark finds very upsetting. Although of course he doesn't mention it to Lex, Clark's inner narration reveals that he has both "a penis-equivalent" and "what was essentially a vagina." Lex threatens to press charges against Clark for knocking him out and taking him off Brainiac's ship, but Clark says that there's legal precedent saying he can remove people from dangerous situations without stopping to ask permission first. He leaves without getting anything but taunting from Lex.


	6. Lois

> ...since Superman and Luthor were the only eyewitnesses to events within the ship itself, and by his own admission, Luthor was unconscious for much of the time. Still, Brainiac has yet to display any outward hostility...

_ Ping. _

Lois looked up from her writing, annoyed. This was an important article and she was on a tight deadline, why was her window (and she’d fought  _ hard  _ for the desk by the window, she’d  _ earned _ that desk) pinging?

Superman was floating there with a handful of pebbles, apparently preparing to toss another one at the window. When she looked up, he waved instead, and then pointed to the roof.

“Can it wait?” she muttered quietly. Not that she didn’t want to see him—to be honest, it was kind of a thrill to have him seek her out like this—but she was  _ busy _ . “Journalists have these things called deadlines, you know.”

He shook his head emphatically.

“Can it wait  _ ten minutes _ ?” she asked. “I really need to get this draft in.” Ten minutes to finish the article and then get to the roof would be a rush, but he  _ had _ saved her life enough times that she’d lost count, so she was willing to make some compromises.

He hesitated, then nodded and was gone.

Ten minutes later, her article in the hands of the copyeditors, Lois was on the roof of the Planet. For a moment she didn’t see Superman, and then he came to a stop in front of her. Had he been pacing? At superspeed?

“I need your help,” he said. “People need to start demanding that Brainiac get the hell off this planet. Every minute he’s here, we’re in danger.”

“What exactly do you want me to do about it?” she asked. “We’ve reported on what you said, and all the  _ news channels _ are playing it on repeat.”

Lois said “news channels” the way some people might say “sewers” or “garbage dumps.”

“Except the ones Lexcorp owns,” Superman said. “While everyone else is being objective, he’s got them running segments like ‘Superman or Brainiac: Which is the Real Alien Menace?’ Someone needs to counter that narrative.”

“I’m flattered by your confidence in me, but I don’t have that kind of pull,” Lois said. “I mean, I can probably get Perry to let me write something up for the Opinion page, but that’s not going to do much.”

“I know,” Superman said grimly. “Look, I know this is a lot to ask, but I need you to pull more strings than that. Half the journalists on the east coast owe you. Plenty more would love it if you owed them a favor. And I know you’ve got contacts in the military, too.”

“Oh, no. I’ll call in favors and promise favors, fine, but if you think I’m calling my dad—”

“I need you to. Please.”

And the thing was, he’d never asked her for anything before. Not unless you counted stuff like “wait here while I punch the giant robot” or “hold on tight while I get you away from this poison gas” or—just that one time—”pass me a slice of the extra cheese, please.”

“Why is this so important?” she asked. “How are you so sure about this?”

“Luthor hasn’t let this out yet—I think he’s still working on how to spin it—but Brainiac is Kryptonian,” Superman said grimly. “It’s modified itself a lot; I think that’s why it looks so cobbled-together. But the core programming is Kryptonian. Brainiac was programmed to keep the Kryptonian race safe, and now there are only two of us left.”

“Interesting,” Lois said. There were a lot of possibilities there. “So the pro-Superman angle is that it betrayed your species and what’s to stop it from betraying ours, and the anti-Superman angle is that it might do anything to us trying to protect you and—what’s the other one’s name?”

Superman looked shocked.

“I don’t know,” he said woodenly. “Brainiac wouldn’t tell me.”

“You didn’t think of that, did you? That it might be willing to destroy the rest of us to protect the two of you.”

“I… I think it probably would have killed Luthor, if that was the case,” he said, but he didn’t sound certain at all. “It was reading his mind. It must have known how many times he’s tried to kill me.”

“You’re probably right,” Lois said, although privately she wasn’t sure. She’d gotten the impression that Lex would much rather have a tame Superman than a dead one. Maybe Brainiac would consider that safe enough. “It’s a good angle, though. Believe it or not, there are some news orgs that don’t like you but don’t work for Lex.”

“I know,” he said. He sounded tired.

“Not in Metropolis,” she said, trying to comfort him—and wasn’t  _ that _ weird. She didn’t usually try to comfort anybody, and Superman didn’t usually need it. “We know what you’ve done for us. But there are people in other cities, who don’t know you as well—”

“I know,” he said again. “Lois, I need to know. I can go to the government and the military myself, but a lot of them don’t trust me at all. Will you talk to General Lane?”

“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “Yeah, I’ll call dad.”

“Thank you.” He was radiating so much earnest goodness at her that she didn’t know whether she wanted to barf or kiss him.

“Yeah, well, it isn’t often that I get to be the one saving the world,” she said. “But listen, what if everyone does demand that it leave and it won’t?”

“Then at least we’ll know for sure,” he said. “And then it’s a problem that I know how to deal with.”

“Right,” Lois said. “And if your preference for problems you can just punch until they go away gets us all killed?”

“That’s not what this is about,” he protested.

“You sure? Because if I’m going to call in all my favors and my  _ dad _ , I need you to be sure,” she said bluntly.

He took a moment to think. She wasn’t sure if that was reassuring or terrifying.

“When I left with Luthor and the other Kryptonian, it tried to attack me,” he said. “Whatever’s going on with its programming, it doesn’t give much of a crap about what people want. It said something about consent being ‘optimal, but not required.’ It can’t be trusted and people need to know that.”

“Okay,” Lois said. “Okay. Why don’t you give me your side of the story, in detail, and then I’ll figure out which bits to send to which people.”

Twenty minutes later, Lois was pecking out an email to Vicki Vale with one hand and calling her dad with the other.

“Hi, dad,” she said. She didn’t exactly get along with her father, but after he learned to stop trying to tell her what to do their relationship had improved dramatically. “Are you free for dinner tonight? There’s something I need to talk to you about. No, I think I should be able to get a lift to Capitol City without any trouble, thanks.”

She grinned to herself. She was doing a lot on Superman’s word; the least he could do was become her private taxi for a day or two.


	7. Brainiac

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late post; I burned the heck out of my hand yesterday. Protip, part of the reason you're only supposed to use a little bit of oil when you're searing something is so that you don't splash your hands with extremely hot cooking oil. (Feel free to ignore this tip if you're Superman.) Anyway, I'm healing up fine and will be back to Saturday/Wednesday after this.

Brainiac’s near-term objectives, from most to least important, were:

  1. Acquire the data from Kal-El’s brain, filling in the previously unknown gaps in its knowledge of Krypton.
  2. Re-acquire a Kryptonian specimen, as a possible future repository of additional knowledge. Either Kryptonian would suffice, although the one untainted by decades on another planet would be preferable.
  3. Destroy, or ensure the destruction of, the remaining Kryptonian.
  4. Finish the collection of data on Earth, including Luthor’s aborted brain scan.
  5. Acquire and preserve a specimen of the human species.
  6. Destroy, or ensure the destruction of, the Earth.



Kal-El’s physical abilities were not entirely unexpected, but they had not been a known quantity. Kryptonians had long been aware that strange and illogical things occurred outside of the Rao system, away from the red light of the star their race had long ago worshipped as a god. It was one of the reasons for their belief—hard-coded into Brainiac—that Krypton was superior to all other planets.

Until it learned of Kal-El’s presence, Brainiac had been certain that it had fulfilled its mandate to protect the Kryptonian people. The scientists who programmed it, generations before Krypton’s destruction, had been careful to include an understanding that death was not the worst possible outcome for a given Kryptonian; otherwise, Brainiac would have been motivated to put all Kryptonians into stasis.

As entropy was a universal law, every Kryptonian would eventually experience death. Those who were destroyed with Krypton lost many years of potential life, but they were spared a worse fate: being forced to live on a planet other than Krypton.

Kal-El represented failure where Brainiac had previously thought it had succeeded. After all the effort it had put into keeping Jor-El from alerting the population and exposing them to the horrors of life away from Krypton, the scientist had thwarted it anyway.

But not forever. Before it destroyed the Earth, Brainiac would ensure that Kal-El was either dead or safely placed within its collection of specimens. Kal-El’s opinions on the matter were irrelevant.

The longer Kal-El existed outside of stasis, the more experiences he had, and the more incomplete Brainiac’s database of Kryptonian knowledge became. It was a situation that could not be allowed to continue.

Not forever, anyway. Brainiac would be more likely to achieve all its objectives if it avoided an outright violent conflict with Kal-El. If that proved impossible, it at least needed to gather all possible information on Kal-El’s unnatural abilities. The best source of that information was Luthor.

When many of the nation-states that populated the Earth began to demand that Brainiac depart—spurred on, according to Luthor, by a rabble-rousing accomplice and possible lover of Kal-El’s, which enforced the need to protect Kal-El from existence off Krypton, as apparently he was engaging in bestiality—it knew that refusal would likely lead to head-on conflict with Kal-El. The likelihood that either Kal-El’s knowledge would be lost forever or Brainiac would be severely damaged was too great. If it withdrew, it would have more time to gather information on Kal-El, and possibly to convince him to submit to the brain scan voluntarily.

Therefore, it returned to the darkness at the edge of the Sol system, but it did not break off contact with Luthor.

It did provide him with the schematics for the brain scanning device. Luthor could scan himself and transmit the data to Brainiac, simultaneously fulfilling objective 4 and laying the groundwork for objectives 1 and 2.

But it would be back.


	8. Clark

The fact that Brainiac had willingly left Earth when asked to do so was encouraging. However, three months later, Dr. Hamilton was still no closer to bringing the other Kryptonian out of stasis. Clark's ship hadn’t had anything useful to offer, either; its programming apparently assumed that anyone needing to bring someone out of stasis would have all the equipment they had used to put them  _ into _ stasis, and could simply reverse the process. Data on how that equipment had worked was entirely lacking.

Clark began to suspect that Brainiac only left because it knew it could come back and repeat its offer to revive them in exchange for his brain scan.

“I’m sorry, Superman,” Dr. Hamilton said after another possible direction of study proved to be a dead end. “Brainiac may have been correct about it being beyond our technology level. We still can’t even figure out how to get them out of that case without them dying.”

“I know you’re doing your best,” Clark said. He put his hand against the clear material—not glass, but apparently not plastic, either; it wasn’t petrochemical-based—that still separated him from the unconscious Kryptonian.

They’d tried everything—plenty of things Clark didn’t understand, and a few he did, like putting the case in sunlight to see if it had the same reviving effect on the unconscious Kryptonian that it did on Clark when he was injured. Nothing had worked. They didn’t even know for sure that the Kryptonian  _ was _ unconscious and not just dead. The stasis pod could be a coffin after all.

But something was going on in there, some sort of interchange between the clothing they wore and the case that held them. There was still room for hope.

“Superman…” Dr. Hamilton sighed. “I wasn’t sure I should even tell you this, but they’re your species. You have the right to make the call.”

“What call?” Clark asked.

“I got an email from Luthor a week ago,” he said reluctantly. “It said that when we’re finished ‘playing around,’ I should remind you that only one person on Earth actually has actually received information about some of Brainiac’s technology.”

“He’s offering to  _ help _ ?” Clark asked incredulously. “Or was he just gloating?”

“If he was offering help, I’m sure it would come at a price,” Dr. Hamilton pointed out.

“Of course,” Clark said. “Well...I should at least find out what that price is.”

“What would you be willing to give, to get a member of your own species back?” Dr. Hamilton asked. Clark was a bit stung by the wariness in his voice.

“The Earth is my home, Emil,” he reminded the scientist. “Humanity is my species just as much as the person in that box is. I won’t give anything I wouldn’t to save a human life.”

“Yes, of course,” Dr. Hamilton said. “I didn’t mean to suggest…”

Clark let him trail off.

“I suppose I’ll go see if Mr. Luthor can fit me into his schedule,” Clark said with a sigh. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

“Good luck,” Dr. Hamilton said.

Clark flew to Lexcorp HQ, thinking furiously. What would he give? He knew Lex was still in contact with Brainiac; would the man simply repeat the AI’s offer to revive the Kryptonian in exchange for a brain scan? Clark liked that idea even less if the data was going to go through Lex’s hands en route to Brainiac.

He’d meant what he’d said to Dr. Hamilton. If Lex thought that with this kind of leverage he could get Superman to do his dirty work, or even look away while he did something himself, he was sorely mistaken.

Lex wasn’t in his office. Mercy was, sitting in his chair and looking bored. She had her feet up on his desk and appeared to be playing a game on her phone. As usual, she must have had an electronics store’s worth of gadgetry concealed on her; he could hear the whine of batteries and the hum of electricity.

Clark knocked on the glass door, and she visibly startled, looking embarrassed for a moment before she schooled her face back into its usual bland expression and got up to let him in.

“Mr. Luthor is in his workshop,” she said without preamble. “He has better things to do than wait around for you all the time, you know.”

“Dr. Hamilton only told me about the email today,” Clark explained.

“So get your own address. Honestly, you need a social media manager,” she informed him.

“I’m not really, uh.” Clark Kent was active on social media, was the thing, mostly because of his job; it was helpful for networking. He kind of hated it, though. Having to have  _ another _ facebook and  _ another  _ twitter and—well, he probably wouldn’t need another linkedin, but anyway, it sounded exhausting. “I’m not really social media savvy.”

“Which is why you need a manager,” Mercy repeated. “Anyway, do you want to hear Mr. Luthor’s offer or not?”

“Yes, please,” Clark said. He was pretty sure this was the longest conversation he’d ever had with Mercy Graves.

“He’ll revive them for free,” she said. “You don’t have to do anything for him. You can even watch him while he does it, or have someone from STAR come assist in the lab. But he gets to keep all the data he gathers about the stasis chamber  _ and _ about Kryptonian physiology.”

“That’s it?” Clark had been expecting far worse.

“He’s probably going to have to do some medical scans on you, just to get a baseline read for a healthy Kryptonian,” she said. “But yeah, that’s it.”

Would he let Luthor have access to his medical information—every embarrassing detail of it—to save a human life? Well, he’d probably try to find another way to save them first, but yeah. Of course he would.

“Any chance he’d agree to keep the information he finds private?” Clark asked.

Mercy laughed.

“Sorry, Superman,” she said. “But you don’t have much of a bargaining position. He’s still pissed that you knocked him out and dragged him off that ship, you know. He’s making this generous offer from the goodness of his heart. Oh, and that’s going to be public information, too. How selflessly he’s helping you.”

“Of course it is,” Clark sighed.

“If it’s any consolation, he’s not going to just put your information on the internet or something,” Mercy said. “He might auction it off or use it to blackmail you, but you know he’s not going to give it away for free.”

“Comforting.” There was, Clark noticed, a half-empty bottle of whiskey on Luthor’s desk. Well, that probably explained why Mercy was being so chatty. “Tell me, Ms. Graves, what exactly does he have on you? You’ve nearly died for him at least half a dozen times, and that’s just the ones that I know about.” The ones that he’d saved her from.

“He pays well,” she said with a secretive smile. “And there’s an excellent health plan. So, should I tell him you accept?”

“Two conditions,” Clark said.

“Did you not hear what I said about your bargaining position?”

“If he can’t get into the pod, he doesn’t get any of my medical information,” he said, ignoring her. “He won’t need it if he can’t even get to them.”

“He’ll get into the case,” Mercy said confidently. “Done. What’s the second condition?”

“If they die, it’s his fault,” Clark said. “I’m not going to shake his hand and thank him for trying. I’m going to start digging up dirt on him. All the things I have on him that wouldn’t be admissible in court? I’ll go to the press with them. And I won’t even look like the bad guy, because I’ll be mourning the loss of my entire species all over again. Understood?”

“That one I’ll have to run by him,” Mercy said. “But I think he’ll agree.”

“Oh, and—”

“You said two conditions,” she reminded him.

“This isn’t a condition, and it isn’t for Luthor,” he said. “If you ever get tired of almost getting killed in his monomaniacal schemes, yell for me. I can keep you safe.”

Mercy snorted.

“Thanks,” she said sarcastically. “But you’re not my type.”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that.” He kept looking at her steadily until she looked away.

“Yeah, I know,” she said, rubbing her right arm with her left. “But trust me, you can’t give me what he does.”

“There are other places you can get money and a health plan,” Clark said.

Mercy laughed.

“Your politeness is going to get you killed one day,” she said. “Probably by me.”

“There are worse things to die of,” he said. “I’ll bring the suspension pod over tomorrow morning, and we can discuss how I’ll be keeping an eye on him. Agreed?”

“That should work for Mr. Luthor,” Mercy said. “I’ll call Hamilton if it doesn’t, or if Lex doesn’t agree to your conditions.”

“Thank you,” Clark said. “Good night, Ms. Graves.”

She waved goodbye desultorily and Clark took off, wondering what exactly she’d meant about politeness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anybody reading this doing NaNo? This is my first one! I'm [Vigs](https://nanowrimo.org/participants/vigs) on there if anyone wants to be writing buddies. I'll be working on an original fiction project, but don't worry, I have enough of a buffer to keep updating twice a week anyway.


	9. Lois

Lois didn’t have takeout on the roof of the  _ Planet _ every night, and Superman didn’t join her every time she did, but they’d been sharing rooftop dinners once or twice a week since that first pizza. He’d even paid her back for his share a few weeks after Brainiac left, pulling a couple of 20s out of his boot, which was pretty hilarious.

“Where did you even get money?” she asked. “Do you moonlight as a forklift or something?” Where did he spend his time when he wasn’t saving the world, anyway? It wasn’t like he could just change out of his costume and blend in, not with the weird proportions of his face. Where did he even  _ sleep _ ? He’d told her that he did, in an interview, but asking where had seemed like prying a bit too much.

“Not exactly,” he said. “You’d be surprised what you can find just lying around on the ground with supervision.”

Lois highly doubted that Superman regularly found 20s lying on the ground, but she forced herself not to ask follow-up questions. This wasn’t an interview, it was a… well, not a date, because if it was a date it was their fifteenth or something and they hadn’t even kissed, which was  _ not _ how Lois operated. It was something that wasn’t an interview or a date, a little bubble of time that was just for them.

About three months after that particular non-date, she went up to the roof with pho and found him already there, his back slumped against the base of the globe statue, looking more miserable than she’d ever seen him—and she’d picked shards of Kryptonite out of his face once.

“Superman? What’s wrong?” Lois sat beside him, setting the pho off to the side. It’d get cold in the winds of the rooftop if they didn’t eat it soon, but a dejected Superman was a more urgent issue.

“I’m sorry, I know you’re not my therapist or anything and I shouldn’t show up and demand emotional labor from you—” When exactly had Superman taken a feminist studies class? Every once in a while he’d drop something like that, and she’d wonder. “—but I can’t talk to… there’s no one else I can talk to about this.”

“Hey.” Lois bumped her shoulder against him companionably. “We’re friends, right? Friends do that for each other sometimes. I won’t even publish it.”

“I might ask you to,” he said with a sort of bitter laugh. “Sooner or later Luthor’s going to publish, and it’d be nice to have a little more sympathetic coverage. That is, I mean… I don’t know how you feel about… it’s not exactly…”

“Complete sentences would be nice,” Lois said, probably not as gently as she should have. It made him smile for a second, though.

“I’m not human,” he said.

“No shit.” He flashed her a pained smile.

“It’s, there are some… differences between human and Kryptonian anatomy. It’s not just…” He gestured towards his face, the placement of his eyes, the subtle wrongness that had become so familiar to her that it almost looked more right than a human face. “There are other differences.”

“Okay,” Lois said, somewhat cautiously. “What does that have to do with Luthor?”

“He got the pod open today,” Superman said. He’d told her about the deal he’d made with Luthor a while ago, but she’d privately thought that Lex was just trying to torment him by dangling hope that would never be fulfilled over his head. It was a shock to hear that he’d actually made progress.

“That’s a good thing, right?” she asked.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s what I was hoping for.” He took a deep breath. “But it meant he could do a full-body scan of the other Kryptonian, and he insisted on doing one on me too, for comparison.”

“So he knows about these...anatomical differences, now?” What could possibly be this bad? She started picturing some John Carpenter bullshit, an extra mouth on his stomach and eyeballs on his knees or something, but honestly it couldn’t be anything  _ too _ dramatic or that form-fitting costume would show it.

“Yeah,” Superman said, leaning his head back against the base of the statue. “He knows. He already had a guess, from some of the things Brainiac said, but now he has proof. He has  _ pictures _ .”

Lois waited for him to explain, but he just sat there silently.

“You don’t have to tell me what the differences are if you don’t want to,” she said. “But it might make you feel better, if you did.”

“Kryptonians…” He took a deep breath. “They only had—we only have—one sex.”

For a second she parsed that wrong, thought he was saying that Kryptonians only had sex once and tried to figure out what kind of “anatomical differences” that could cause, but then she caught up.

One sex. So Super _ man _ wasn’t exactly a… She squashed that line of thought hard, sure that if she’d finished it, even inside her head, Vicki would somehow know about it and kick her ass. And she’d be right to do it.

“Okay,” Lois said. “But you’re okay with being called Superman, and with he/him pronouns and all?”

“I identify as male,” Superman said. “But my physiology isn’t exactly standard for males.”

“Well, yeah,” Lois said. “Most of them can’t pick up cars.”

He laughed a little, seeming to relax just a bit.

_ Don’t ask him if he has a cloaca, don’t ask him if he has a cloaca, do NOT ask him if he has a cloaca. _

“I have some trans friends,” she told him. “Not that you’re trans, exactly. Intersex, I guess? But I know the drill.”

“I don’t identify as intersex because the intersex experience is largely defined by pathologization and unwanted medical interventions, and I didn’t go through any of that,” he said. It sounded sort of automatic. Lois imagined Superman running across the word “intersex” somewhere and thinking he’d found a term for himself, a group he fit with on his adopted planet, only to decide that he didn’t qualify. It made her want to hug him.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay?” he repeated.

“Yeah, okay. I told you, I have trans friends. I’m not going to start interrogating you about your body parts, I promise.”

He sighed, sounding relieved.

“I’d tell you some other time,” he said. “If you want to know. But not today.”

“Okay,” she said again, and put her arm around him slowly enough that he could pull away if he wanted without having to resort to superspeed. He leaned into her instead, and if she wasn’t hurting for him she’d have been delighted. His flesh was as cool and unyielding as the stone they were using as a backrest, and she wondered what she felt like to him, all squishy and warm. Maybe he’d gotten used to how she felt, even started to like it, the way she had. “Lex is an asshole. Whatever he said was bullshit, and if he does try to publish… I’m not saying there aren’t any other assholes, but every city in the US would start fighting over who gets to have you lead their Pride parade.”

Superman snorted.

“You want some cold pho?” Lois offered.

“I’ll heat vision it,” he said. “We can both have hot pho.”

But for a moment neither of them reached for the bag, just leaning against each other on the rooftop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late post! To make up for it, this is sort of a double post. You don't need to read it to understand the story, but I've posted [STAR Labs' internal documentation on Superman](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16561334/chapters/38804294) for anyone who's interested.


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